


tattoo your promises, let them grow like trees

by lalalyds2



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Spellcest, Zelda has a tattoo and this is just massive exposition to get there, i've missed y'all so i've written this monster to make it up, it is - as always - nonsense, more metaphors and similes, sisters being soft but not, slight mentions of sex and suicide ideation, trees and promises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 04:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalyds2/pseuds/lalalyds2
Summary: just really wanted Zelda to have a tattoo okay?





	tattoo your promises, let them grow like trees

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my darling Sam, who first Scremed about this idea to me, and then i Scremed back, and then this was born.   
> someday i'll write a fic worthy of you <3

 

There is an unspoken rule about a summer sun ruling an ocean sky with a very green field below them both. When the day is just nearing perfect, something has to fall.

Call it karma or clandestine or being child, the duty comes down to Hilda.

Tumbling in the waxy grass, her leg scrapes a rock. The skirt catches under the tripping foot, rips at the hem and knee, offers no protection as the skin grinds harsh against stone.

“Ouch.”

A bead of blood oozes. Another follows. It’s not until the knee has the audacity to sting that she remembers to whimper. It would have turned into a full out wail had there not been a tap on her dollop gold head.

“Tagged you.”

Zelda panting, pretending not to, victory gleaming as she turns to go again. Hilda whines, soft but insistent, grabs Zelda’s hot little hand in her own hot little hand and tethers her to this time of need.

“Can’t play anymore. I hurt my knee.”

A deep, age old sigh heaves from a small and youthful frame.

“You say that _every_ time I tag you.”

“I mean it this time.”

“You say _that_ too.”

Hilda brings her knee up, as proof of this very real calamity, hisses as sisterly ire gives way to the burn of dirt in a scrape. Zelda takes in the ooze — _the_ _ow_ — clucks her tongue and proceeds to look very unimpressed.

“See? Real boo-boo.” Hilda’s eyes are sweet and deceivingly doe. “Fix it for me?”

It’s unfair. She knows how Zelda likes playing nurse. But still, there are some things a little girl has got to do on her own.

“You already know the spell.”

A pout is added to the doe eyes, and the eyelashes bat ever so blonde.

“I like how you do it better.”

Zelda flops down on the grass, though certainly more graceful than Hilda had, what with her short little legs akimbo and torn skirt haphazard. Zelda reaches for Hilda’s knee gently, admonishing even as she maneuvers the soft-rounded calf into her lap. Cupping her hands over the wound, careful not to touch, she mutters the incantation. Her voice pitches high and soft.

Hilda makes noise as the skin knits itself back together. When the tickling magic fades and the deed is done, she wiggles the seemingly supple limb. Frowns. Shakes it in Zelda’s lap. Zelda pushes it off.

“You haven’t finished.”

The sharp intake of air is pure insulted.

“I have _too_.”

Hilda pouting in earnest, adamant.

“It needs a kiss, for feel betters.”

Zelda’d learned to roll her eyes from their older cousin, Liana. Practiced in the mirror nearly every day for a week. She does it again now very well.

“That’s not part of the spell.”

The pouting act ends. Hilda’s lower lip wobbles real in little sister upset. Zelda hears thumping footsteps and shouting laughter and remembers why they’re here.

Black Mass is over, and the children are in full motion, relieved to be under the bright blue sky as their parents sit somber and smug in their unholy building. If there is one blessing in the scarcity of night children, it is that every youth is so bored and starved of interest, every and all of them play together.

Zelda takes this playing very seriously. Every game is a chance to show herself off to the big kids, and nothing can deter or put itself in the way of that.

Except, _apparently_ , Hilda’s newly healed and unkissed kneecap.

She looks as near despondent as a cherub-cheeked babe can be, and unbidden, Zelda finds herself relenting even as she sighs. She kisses the skin through the rip in Hilda’s dress — a quick peck of comfort and indulgence and sisterly affection — and then she is standing up, their hands an intertwined furnace of fingers as she hauls Hilda up too.

“There, you big baby.”

It’s spoken exasperated and fond.

“Thank you, Zelds.”

She’s about to complain at the nickname, she only sometimes likes it and now is not one of those times, but Hilda kisses her nice on the cheek as gratitude. It’s warm, like firm cherries against the skin, and she’s pretty sure there’s stain, but the big kids are running their way and she doesn’t really want to play tag anymore.

Too many scraped knees and torn dresses for her taste. And Hilda is always so clumsy.

“Hilda, let’s play Hide & Seek.”

The little head quirks, wispy blonde curls dangle as result.

“Do we get to be a team?”

As if she has to ask.

“Of course. We’re _always_ a team.”

Their reflecting smiles are winning and a little bit wicked.

As the other children of the coven gather round, all wondering what’s taken so long, Zelda announces (in what Hilda calls her bossy voice) the game change. There is a great thrill in her at the collective groans but overall obedience. She likes playing nurse, but she _loves_ being in charge. There is another groan as she announces she and Hilda are _It_.

When she and Hilda are paired together, no one can last longer than a second. The sisters tag team too well. They are unbeatable and unbearably so.

Still, as the sisters close their eyes and count to sixty-six, everyone runs and tries regardless of the impending failure. When time is called, she and Hilda split up, Zelda taking trees and Hilda taking rocks. They find their targets up in the branches or crouching low in the ferns. Some are fine and fancy — using spells and shielding themselves from sight, but Hilda can still sense their emotions as they anticipate capture.

One by one, they round up the lot, and it takes them no time at all. The longest anyone had hidden from the sisters was just under ten minutes, when Minnie Bage had turned herself into a rabbit and gotten stuck in a log. No one could beat her record, and today is no different.

Alternatively, when the game begins again and little Arnie Witzer with his knobby knees and penchant for hopping like a toad is _It_ , the sisters cannot be found. Their hands intertwine and they stay unseen — except for perhaps as a shimmer above the running creek water, or a heatwave against the wrinkled bark of a tree. Near invisible, many children only find the sneaky pair by quite literally bumping into them.

They reign supreme in this game — so good at it, the rest of the coven will team together to find them. Eddie is the best at sussing them out, but even he has a good struggle.

Arnie counts out his seconds, and the sisters scamper off. Zelda finds the perfect hiding spot — a knotted tree with enough foliage they could stay unfound for hours. She goes first, pointing back so Hilda can follow her climbing path, and then they perch on the same branch together. Shoulders press close and hands stay clasped as they watch the game below.

Arnie hops his little frog steps, finds Minnie and Sienna first because they got caught up in gossip. The little rabbits run, but Arnie catches them, regardless of his amphibious walk.

The day ages in quiet contentment. Hilda finds the end of Zelda’s braid and plays with the soft fraying tips. Zelda eyes the form of the tree and wonders how it would look in watercolors.

The shadows grow longer, and suddenly Hilda’s hand is a vice. Wide eyes go squinty, she gazes uncertainly, distrustfully at how empty the forest seems to be.

Zelda is not so fearful. The afternoon has been as sweet as jam, Hilda’s been the good kind of quiet. Plus, they’ve won the game. The glow stays in Zelda’s chest, so she squeezes Hilda’s hand back nicely.

“Nothing’s going to hurt you.” She soothes. “We’re together. We’re fine.”

Hilda looks up at her and there’s hero worship in her eyes, wholehearted belief at her words because Zelda is older and righter and always knows what to say. It makes Zelda sit a little taller, button dress chest puffed out.

Hilda goes to climb, pauses.

Whispers, “I don’t know how to get down.”

Zelda’s snort is indelicate. Still, she climbs down first and shows Hilda all the right footholds (and talks distraction so Hilda won’t notice how many wrong footholds she finds first).

She nearly twists her ankle as she catches on a root, but Hilda is making noise in the back of her throat, swallowed evidence that she’s scared, so Zelda leans forward to press encouraging hands on Hilda’s back until she’s safely on the ground.

Hilda’s fists twist into the back of Zelda’s dress as she bear hugs her thanks.

The sisters cling and let hands dangle together when they separate.

“See? I’ve got you.”

Zelda’s smile is teasing but true. Hilda’s answering smile wibbles a wobble, but the trust is as green and lush as the entire forest.

“Next time, I’ll get you.”

Zelda nods and knows she’d never let that happen. Big sisters don’t get got. But it’s nice to know Hilda would try.

Hilda turns back to the tree and pats its bark.

“Thank you for not kicking us out of your branches.” She says it rather solemnly and Zelda can’t help but snigger.

“As if it would dare.”

Hilda squeals, a lightbulb popping up in her baby brain.

“Zelds! This is _our_ tree now.”

Zelda scoffs in full.

“Stop hugging it. Let’s go home.”

They pick their way through the leaves and hidden sticks. Hilda’s got a firm grip around Zelda’s thumb.

“I still say that’s our tree.” She says, as woods fade and their house finally comes into sight. “It’s going to protect us.”

“Nonsense. We’re the sisters Spellman. We’ll protect each other.”

Hilda stops and releases Zelda’s thumb, only to stick her littlest finger in her older sister’s face.

“Pinkie promise?”

Zelda sighs but the pinkies lock, and so many things meld.

“Pinkie promise.”

 

~*~

 

The sky is a bruising blue when Zelda goes back to the tree on her own. The temperature is stifling but still she shivers because something has irrevocably, irreparably broken. She knows it. She’s torn it herself.

There is a schism in the universe. Hilda is under the ground.

Trembling hands grip the knotted branches, the teenager hoists herself up and feels she’s aged a century.

Zelda rests her head against the dirty bark, breathes in deep through her nose and does not notice how her tight curls are fuzzing out rough. She presses harder as the memories keep repeating behind closed eyelids. They flutter in her mind like insistent moths, dissolving in the flames of her internal destruction.

Hilda in school hallways, scrolls and hard leatherbacks pressed tight to her bosom, her little grin growing blushes to the towering boy above her. The boy’s name as boring and unoriginal as Crow, his grades as boring and unoriginal as failing, and his interest as enthralling and unoriginal as all the boys Zelda has successfully fought off. His interest was too easy to spot. Hilda heaves them with every breath.

Hilda’s tits are what wet dreams are made of. But they are not for unworthy boys’ midnight lust wanders. They are not for Zelda’s midnight lust longings either, but she has better restraint than those drooling idiots.

Crow had not been scared of Zelda’s threats, nay, her _promises_ of very real violences against him if he touched. With bravado, or maybe true confidence, he had stared and flirted and brushed Hilda’s hair back behind her ears. He’d been intent to devour and defile, to take and take and take. And Hilda had leaned forward, and almost willingly given.

Zelda had seen them then, Hilda’s elegant fingers clutching and swallowed in his pale hand. Zelda’s heart choking her throat as she saw Crow leading Hilda away from the Academy, away from the coven, away from her.

He had held Hilda so loosely, as if he was unafraid of dropping the universe of her, and he had looked at Zelda (and every other passing witch as well) and winked.

She couldn’t make him fear her, but she could make Hilda fear him. So she had.

It had been so easy, it nearly made her sad. He’d hopped into her bed without being asked twice. Grunting and ready and so unpracticed in foreplay, he was. Zelda had gritted her teeth and been relieved that Hilda would not have to suffer him as her first time.

“I know you want her,” he’d said, eyes limpid and hands clammy on her hips as he pumped inside.

“Who?” She scoffed through a clenched jaw, though they both knew the answer.

He’d said it anyway, and it left her a bad kind of breathless.

“Hilda. Your innocent, intolerantly unfuckable sister.” He paused a moment, and his grin had been selfish. Happy to be cruel. “I kissed her before coming here.”

She’d hissed and scratched her nails in. He hadn’t seemed to notice.

“Don’t you want to know what she tastes like?”

Zelda grabbed him by the neck, pulled him forward. His lips were cold.

He’d tasted like pepper and coal smoke and the tiniest hint of dark fruit.

It wasn’t enough Hilda.

She reeled back as if tricked, as if hurt. Her heart was swimming in her eyes and he’d stared like it was something beautiful.

Then, there’d been a tiny noise of pain.

Hilda, doe eyes wide.

It was almost what she’d intended, but wrong. She’d wanted Hilda to know of Crow’s infidelity through a grapevine, not a misrepresentable image. It would be an ugly rumor. She didn’t have to see the ugly truth.

Zelda’s heart fell like a body from a balcony. She’d pushed Crow out and off of her, but the heart stayed on the ground and did not get up.

“Crow?”

His name in disbelief, in helpless anguish. He’d only shrugged to it, took no responsibility for dropping her world so quickly.

“I’m not into monogamy.”

Hilda’s eyes filled up, bigger than an ocean and sadder than an empty sky. Then, she’d looked at Zelda. Nostrils flared, the jaw clenched, fists balled up and anger leaking out.

“Is there nothing in this world that’s mine?”

She’d left without needing an answer.

When Zelda had caught up with her, dress on but wretchedly askew, Hilda was packing her trunk and looking for all the world like she was leaving.

Panic rose volcanic.

As Hilda had shoved clothes in, Zelda took them out. The other girls in the dormitory looked on and tittered like it was some great comedy but stayed clear from the stage. Zelda couldn’t laugh, couldn’t speak over the lava on her tongue, could only undo Hilda’s efforts and infuriate her sister in the process.

In a cry of desolate rage, Hilda had shoved Zelda back, away from her luggage and away from her life. Zelda reacted almost on instinct. The anger was still felt.

Hilda’s head hit the corner bed post wetly.

Some watching girls had cried out. Others scattered. Zelda had stared in disbelief, saw as the life tethered to hers had drained and fallen void. There was a sharp snap, then disconnect.

Hilda fizzled out.

No more sisters Spellman. And thus, the world had shifted.

It currently tilts now, after Zelda had teleported both her and body back home, dug in a frenzy and left the body to recuperate in the Cain pit. She cannot think of that _thing_ as Hilda. That is not Hilda. Hilda is bright and warm and ditzy and, most importantly, _alive_.

She can’t bring herself to watch Hilda come back. Can’t bear to sit and wonder if the Cain pit doesn’t actually work.

If it does, she’ll never forgive herself. If it doesn’t, she will go to Hell one way or another and see Hilda again. But she still won’t forgive herself.

“You look terrible.” Comes a hoarse voice.

She startles, nearly falls from her post in their sister tree, looks down at a beast of mud and ill action.

“Hilda.” It is a sigh. A relief. An answered prayer. “So it does work then.”

“You killed me.”

She is so guilty, but the petulance in Hilda’s voice still rankles.

“I also brought you back. You’re welcome.”

Hilda’s mouth gapes, her tongue violently pink against the pitch of black dirt. It shuts with a snap, and Zelda can practically see the flood of memory that washes over her. She’s drowning in it.

“You hurt me.”

She can’t look at Hilda anymore.

“I know.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for that too?”

It’s the sarcasm that stings. Zelda should be contrite, should be remorseful, but all she can do is seethe.

“Maybe.”

“He was nice to me.”

“Only when he was gawking down your shirt.”

Hilda looks so wounded, so defeated in her muddy dress and her muddy caked features, Zelda can’t take it anymore. She jumps from her perch in the branches, doesn’t wince as she makes impact on the ground. She reaches for her sister.

Hilda won’t allow her hug, shifts backwards and stays away. Zelda frowns and tries not to feel dangerous.

“I’ve done you a service, you know.”

“By sleeping with my boyfriend?”

“He would have hurt you in the end.”

“It bloody well hurts enough already.”

“He wouldn’t have loved you.”

_Not as much as I do_.

Her throat closes on those words, keeps them inside. She’d meant to say it as a shield. Instead, it’s an arrow. Zelda watches it pierce Hilda’s interior and make her bleed.

“Then who will?”

It’s whispered, and she knows the question is not spoken for her.

She reaches for Hilda again. Open hands meet empty air.

“I was trying to protect you, little sister. I promise I was.”

Hilda’s back is already turned and she’s hobbling her way back home and she is not waiting for Zelda to come with her.

“If that’s your version of protection, then I really don’t want it.”

Zelda watches her go, feels the bond between them going rift, winnowing down to a thin strand. She nearly sobs in relief that it doesn’t snap. She’d felt that once today, and that was enough. Her arms go around herself, needing to clutch at anything to keep grounded. Her eyes float, drifting and listless as she wonders what she’ll do now.

There’s texture under her fingers, dirt on her dress. She thrums the nails against the material on her rib cage.

The sister tree catches her eye, taunts her in its effortless strength. A tree does not bend. Does not fall unless forced. She thinks of symbols and branches and life and death and Greendale witches and so many promises broken.

When her feet go numb from the night, she wanders back home. Hilda’s got the lights off.

Zelda uses the sliver moon’s silver light to see. She grabs an ink pot and a sewing needle. Undresses quietly, her hand hovering over a small patch of skin.

The needle glints sharp and pointy.

She pokes herself, it sticks dark and angry in her side. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should.

The night leans long and she keeps on poking, etching in promises she’s not sure she’ll be able to keep.

 

~*~

 

The sky is probably blue again, some color a simile cannot quite capture, but Zelda is seeing none of it, perched contented on the couch.

Her sister is beside her, Zelda’s head in her lap, humming offhandedly and off-key as she darns the very slip she’d torn off Zelda’s body with her own teeth.

Zelda is languid and sated, tuning out Hilda’s noise, donned only in undergarments and her cigarette ring. She sucks in nicotine and tries not to lose this fever dream.

They are still very new at this.

Not the darning or donning or even domesticity, but this new dynamic. Now, Zelda gets to hold Hilda anytime she wants. Hilda promises she’s always wanted to be held by her. Zelda doesn’t believe it, but she doesn’t let go.

It had started quite simply. Sabrina had wanted to play Hide & Seek. _Correction_ , Lettie had.

They visit her often and would spoil her rotten if she would only let them. She loves her mummies, but she worships Sabrina. It’s a trait most little sisters have.

So when Sabrina had tagged her little shoulder and told her she was _It_ , then she was _It_. She shooed her mummies off because help was not allowed, scrunched up her eyes (and her entire face for good measure), and counted to sixty-six.

Zelda had reached out her hand, Hilda had taken it, and then they’d disappeared. The memory was old, the happiness was old, but somehow both completely new.

They were too _not-old_ for climbing trees, Zelda’s dress was too tight for it anyway, and Hilda’s nervous giggle kept rising in decibels. Zelda shushed her first with a finger against her lips. Hilda had bitten it. She claimed it was accident, but then Zelda had claimed her lips and shushed her again. Neither was silent.

Zelda finally learned what Hilda tasted like. Sunshine and earth and an open universe. She held her carefully, didn’t let her drop.

Later, Lettie found them tangled on the forest floor. She had protested in indignant innocence as Sabrina blushed and covered both their eyes.

Even in her vibrant youth, Zelda has never spent so much time undressed. Hilda has a penchant for them sleeping in the nude, skin against skin, like pages in a book all nestled together and holding infinite words. It is a decadent luxury, and Zelda cannot deny her. But even in indulgence, she keeps her secrets.

Since she was a teenager, crouching over in aureate moonlight and making perpetually broken promises, she has kept a glamor whenever nude. Magic coating the skin, smoothing the stretch marks, hiding the scars, rending her sticked and poked ribcage an untouched marble.

It had been easier to hide before Hilda loved her. Back then, she dressed behind the rice paper screen divider, bathed alone, and worn clothes that only asked the imagination to wander.

Now, she is open and often before her sister, holding a secret magic and pretending it does not tax her. When her nose bleeds, she dabs it with a handkerchief and waves off Hilda’s fussing. She grows a shade paler and muses aloud on what sort of cold she’s contracted. Hilda will bite her tongue, but they both know witches do not contract colds. Zelda asks if she’d like to contract the cold as well. Hilda’s eyes roll, but she kisses her fiercely all the same.

Last night, Sabrina had come home from the Academy early, seen the beast with two backs, swiftly returned to school. Later she’d remarked that, while she really could have done without such traumatization, she hopes to age as well as Zelda has. Her skin pearly and smooth, a perfection. It’s almost unbelievable.

Hilda had frowned, agreed. It _was_ almost unbelievable.

Zelda felt a whip memory, excused herself to bed and took the scotch decanter with her. When Hilda had slipped in beside her, they simply stayed. Together, not so close. Zelda hadn’t slept much at all. She never falls asleep first.

Now, head lolled on Hilda’s thigh, little sister’s warbling so out of tune and utterly endearing, she starts to doze. Slumber pulls strong, unintentionally she falls further.

She dreams of blonde little girls and pretty black birds.

When she wakes, there is a thumb on her uncovered ribs, squishing on her ink, as if it could be rubbed off. There is distinctly no magic about her, no glamor. All flaws on display. She is up and irate in two seconds flat.

“This tattoo is _old_.”

There is question in Hilda’s statement. Accusation too.

Zelda’s eyes sting, she snatches her repaired slip from Hilda’s open grasp. It tugs over her head roughly and she feels more naked than ever.

“You were never supposed to see it.”

“And now that I have?”

Hilda’s eyes are so dark, Zelda feels very nearly helpless. The rug ripped out from under her, she has lost another layer.

“I’d suggest you forget it exists.”

“Not a chance.”

Zelda scoffs, the sound is harsh in her throat.

“I’m not going to tell you tonight.”

The _or ever_ is not spoken. Still heard.

“Even if I asked?”

“I’d lie.”

“I don’t sleep with liars.”

“Then don’t bother coming to bed.”

She is so weary when she slips under her covers. She curses the mattress that’s always felt too small, now an ocean of empty space. The minutes tick by, and she sighs because she and Hilda have fallen back to old patterns. She wonders when she’ll break another promise.

It is so unexpected when she hears the door creak open, she nearly gasps when warm arms wrap around her. There is a thumb on her silk, right where the covered tattoo rests.

She is hyper aware, hyper exposed, but she doesn’t dare move because she can’t survive Hilda’s absence as much as she pretends she can. The withholding, being held softly. She weeps, and Hilda says nothing. There is simply a promise to stay, and the promise is not broken.

 

~*~

 

The sky is an infinite blue, and there is no other way to describe it.

Zelda is glaring up at it and deciding whether to feel nervous or angry. As always, she goes with the latter.

Hilda has been suspiciously silent about Zelda’s tattoo. The lack of nosiness is enough cause for anyone’s alarm. Every night, she comes to Zelda’s side and holds her close, kissing her as soft or as hard as she likes, and says nothing about that cursed ink.

Her thumb stays molten lead on it, finding it without ever looking. Insistent, accepting.

Zelda won’t release her glamor. She grows paler, keeps a handkerchief near at all times, gains a perpetual cough till it shakes her frame, but she won’t give it up.

Hilda watches and worries and doesn’t say a word.

It’s been weeks of unspoken secrets, but Hilda stays. Zelda relishes every second and knows it cannot last.

Today, Hilda leaves her a handwritten note next to her breakfast, the looped letters asking her to visit their sister tree in two hours, and Zelda knows this is an end.

She still goes, angry with trepidated loss.

Hilda’s got a blanket spread out on the forest ground. The neighboring pile of sticks a couple feet away and a tea set still steaming are testament to how she’s worked to make this place soft. She chatters idly about the weather as she settles Zelda squarely in the center, sitting cross legged beside her.

Zelda is confusion.

There is a purpose to this picnic, but Hilda won’t get to its point.

When Hilda kisses her shoulder, lingers a little too long on a singular freckle, Zelda sighs in relief.

Sex, she knows how to do.

They couple together gently, Hilda adamantly agave about it. Her fingers are only warm, only kind as they lead Zelda to completion. She takes the reigns whenever Zelda bucks harshly, slows the pace and steadily shatters her again and again until she’s what Hilda’s affectionately termed “pulsing eternal.”

It’s only when she can take no more that Hilda withdraws, sucking on her fingers and looking so happy to make Zelda happy that Zelda bursts into tears.

Hilda, instantly crestfallen.

“Oh no. Oh Zelda, what did I do wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s me, I’m not — You have loved me too well.”

Now, Hilda is confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

Zelda sheds what little remains of her clothes, is naked. Releases the glamor. Is bare before her sister, layer-less.

Hilda takes in the scarred shoulder blades, Zelda’s true pallor from magic exhaustion, finally sees all of Zelda’s rib tattoo.

It is a sticked and poked sister tree, perfectly captured, from the gnarling roots to the sprawling branches. Smaller than Hilda’s fist, so intricately detailed it must have taken years of adding on to produce such a thing.

“This is my broken promise to you,” Zelda says, tears silently dripping and gaze staunchly upwards.

“I promised to protect you, and instead I killed you.”

“You always brought me back,” Hilda protests, and Zelda laughs miserably.

They are such a twisted amalgamation of abuses and excuses.

“I’ve catalogued each death of you, each broken promise. Turned the horrors into leaves.”

Hilda counts the tattooed leaves. They are closer to one hundred than not.

As her fingers ghost over the beautiful atrocity, Zelda shudders and continues.

“Every time I made another leaf, I promised myself — promised _you_ — it was the last time. Never again. But I kept needing new leaves, and then more branches for more leaves.”

“What happens when you run out of room?”

Hilda’s question is watery.

Zelda shrugs and refuses to look at anything other than the canopy of green above them.

“Then I will climb to the highest branch of this tree and it will be my turn in the ground. And I’ll make sure I stay there.”

Hilda’s sound is sharp and alarmed.

Zelda closes her eyes.

“I can’t ask you to be with me.” She says, cringing because even the words stab hard. “I don’t even think you should.”

There is shuffling noise in the forest.

Zelda’s eyes stay closed and she knows Hilda is gone.

Arms engulf her.

She shrieks, surprised and overwhelmed and just so very tired.

Hilda holds her fast and does not let go. She cries and does not understand why.

“Shh . . .” Hilda soothes, one hand rubbing the bumpy marks on Zelda’s back, the other carding slow and sweet through her mussed hair.

“Let go, Zelds. It’s okay. It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

Big sisters don’t get got. But she’s never been a very good one anyway.

They crumple down on quilt, skin on skin, thighs slotted between thighs, heads tucked into shoulders like books tucked on a shelf.

Hilda breathes deep and drowsy until Zelda does too.

She feels her little sister’s mental probe, a request to share. It is tentative and benign, but even if it wasn’t Zelda would still let her in. In this moment, Zelda would let Hilda rip her to shreds and still ask for something worse.  She deserves no less. 

She lifts her mental guards, and Hilda slips in.

 

_Little girls laughing, Zelda glowing and golden as she tugs Hilda along in tall grass. They run uninhibited and together. It is a special kind of magic no spell could ever replicate._

 

_Zelda under the bright blue sky, offering Hilda a handful of blueberries she’d found. They squish all juice and jammy in the mouth, a sweet taste of summer._

 

_Zelda in the darkness, clutching Hilda’s hand in hers, protecting her from the night and all its monsters. She is fearlessly brave, and so willing to kiss Hilda’s brow. Always so able to chase away the nightmares and fright fancies._

 

_Zelda aging, hair flaming and flaxen and power ever resonating. She is the sunshine, warming Hilda from the inside out._

 

_Zelda in a vengeance, smoldering eyes and wicked hands, still lovely and ever so lethal._

 

_Zelda in love, moonstruck and hazing around the edges. She is a dazzlement._

 

_Hilda’s darling. In almost every moment, whether between spats or between her thighs._

 

_Zelda is only destiny, the only place she belongs._

 

_Together is all that matters._

 

When the mental tether goes slender and the images fade, Zelda holds Hilda even tighter.

“I don’t deserve you.”

She means it.

“Love doesn’t need deserving.”

Hilda means it too.

Zelda kisses her cherry mouth, and she sighs to it. It is heated but not. It’s not asking anything, it’s just giving thanks and getting thanks back. It is reassurance. They are here, and they are together, and it matters so much.

Zelda kisses Hilda’s dear face and whispers very quietly how much she loves her. Hilda says she knows. She says it back.

They stay naked and close for a very long time.

When night knocks into their aging bones, they help each other stand. Dress slowly. Hilda magicks away the tea set. Zelda folds up the blanket. They hold hands and walk together.

“Oh! Just a moment.” Hilda stops, let’s go of Zelda.

She turns back to the tree, gives it a tight hug and a whispered thanks. She goes so far as to kiss the bark, Zelda feels an eye roll coming on (because no matter how many years and fears and tears, some things simply do not change). Then Hilda’s hands are raising, and the tree goes up in flames. An inferno in a blink of an eye.

Zelda gapes.

Hilda sets up a barrier circle, so the rest of the forest won’t burn, does not pay attention to the feat she’s just done. She smiles as happy as a lark, grabs Zelda’s hand once again and tugs them both homewards.

“Why?” Zelda is able to splutter.

“We don’t need a tree to make promises or protections. I’ve got you, you’ve got me. That is enough.”

It is Zelda who laces their fingers together.

“More than enough,” she manages beyond the new onslaught of emotion.

“Pinkie promise?”

Hilda’s eyes are twinkling and forever young in this twilight. Zelda is defenseless to it, smiles back and feels lighter than she has in over a century.

It is wonderful to be protected.

“Pinkie promise.”


End file.
